Posted
by
samzenpus
on Tuesday September 27, 2011 @01:55PM
from the fly-a-straight-line dept.

bazzalunatic writes "Each wet season in northern Australia dozens of colorful lorikeets have to be rescued because they appear drunk, fall out of trees and even get a hangover-like sickness. No one knows quite what's going on, but the best explanation is they get smashed from fermented fruit. From the story: 'Experts say they are not sure if the lorikeets are actually drunk, but they do have tell-tale symptoms. "They exhibit odd behavior like falling over or difficulty flying [and] they keep running into things," says Darwin vet Dr Stephen Cutter from The Ark Animal Hospital.'"

Bill Werbeniuk [wikipedia.org], a professional snooker player in the 1970s and 1980s used to drink six pints of beer before a match for the same reason. He was ranked as high as 8th in the world too. He drank a lot more pints during and after the matches too. Of course the heavy drinking eventually turned on him, causing heart problems which eventually killed him.

Because according to some articles, something is changing the nature of the event - it used to be that only a handful of birds were affected each season, the numbers are now increasing significantly with each season.

Because according to some articles, something is changing the nature of the event - it used to be that only a handful of birds were affected each season, the numbers are now increasing significantly with each season.

Think about it: Where natural selection might have eliminated a certain number of these birds, keeping the total number in the same range year after year, now we "save" them. Thus *OF COURSE* the number of these birds is increasing.

Couldn't a simple blood test/tox screen tell scientists quickly if it is alcohol or some other source? Basically scientists are saying "they act drunk, we don't know for certain why". They could be eating piles of rotted fruit, or a naturally occoring berry, or poisonous insects or fumes from machinery. They could be doing it intentionally or accidentally. Bottom line is, if you are going to go to the trouble of posting a study... shouldn't some research and diagnostics be done if it is worth caring about?

I find it surprising that the experts are saying they don't know what causes it, seeing as I knew when I was all of 10 years old - I used to watch it happen in our back yard.
We had mango trees. The fruit would fall to the ground (usually knocked off by fruit bats), it would sit in the sun and ferment (and smell), and the birds would come and pick at it. What followed was always hilarious to watch - very loud birds acting very drunk, and usually unable to fly - they'd run around on the ground randomly flapp

Birds getting drunk on fermented berries is common all around the world and that's one of the options they're considering. However, TFA says that it might not be the case here: The effects can last days even after the bird is brought in for treatment, which really shouldn't happen seeing how amazingly fast metabolism parrots have. Also, the fact that these have so dramatically increased in the last ten years suggests that there might be more to it.

Don't you have to like, have a liver clear the alcohol out of your system? I'm no doctor, but it would stand to reason that any metabolism, regardless of how amazingly fast it is, still needs to be filtered to remove present toxins. I'm sure they have livers, but is it sufficient in size to remove the toxin at the pace with which larger mammals can? The effects of alcohol poisoning (which, imo, could account for the "more than simple drunkenness") seem to be a pretty obvious "duh."

It's not known what is wrong with the birds, but it's possibly the effect of a virus combined with ingesting alcohol from fermenting fruit.
The affects usually last for a couple of days, far longer than you would expect if it was just alcohol-related, Stephen says. Additional symptoms which suggest that the condition is more than than simply drunkenness include respiratory problems and a discharge from bird's nostrils, mouth and eyes.

So it seems they have a good reason to think that it's not alcohol, or not just alcohol... but yeah, they should just test the birds instead of scratching their heads.

This happens elsewhere too. In Alaska various juncos, chickadees, pine siskins, and other small songbirds will get drunk off of mountain ash berries that freeze and ferment on the tree during the late fall and early winter. This has happened since "time immemorial" according to various Athabaskan and Tlingit elders I've talked to, and they have always enjoyed watching the drunken antics.

Moose will get drunk from eating crabapples frozen and fermented on the tree. I think they browse the mountain ash berries

In NL, it is rather common for "kramsvogels", fieldfares acording to my dictionary to eat fermented berries. They get as drunk as any other mamal trying to eat the berries. It's absolutely fun to watch, but not very special technically speaking. Also, according to some bird info, drunk birds will be lower on the picking order.

Anyway, in Greenland man eats kiviaq, which is fermented bird. Sounds entirely more gruesome to me. Then again, I could just safe a hare that my female friend had received. The hare ha

I remember reading about the pink pigeons on Mauritius that would get intoxicated on berries, but the locals stayed away from them rather than enjoy the easy pickings. One of the byproducts of the digestion of fermented berries was supposedly hydrogen cyanide, which didn't hurt the birds but isn't exactly something you want to ingest with dinner.

One of my neighbors when I was a kid had a couple of big mulberry trees that put out enormous quantities of fruit. When it was all ripe and overripe, it would fall to the ground and ferment - just walking by you could smell alcohol. The blue jays used to binge on this stuff and get quite loaded. First, they'd get very very noisy. A while later you'd see them just walking down the sidewalk, not even thinking about flying anywhere. Pretty funny (except the hangover when they woke up the next day, I suppose).

I've seen it myself in the rainforests of coastal Australia and it's not some wild theory there - it just happens that way and everybody knows it. And that was years ago. Why it is being presented here as some great mystery remaining to be solved is the mystery itself.

Of course, if the government wants to give a $1 million grant and a lot of good grain alcohol to study it first-hand, sign me up.

They say they think it is what is making them act this way, how about a confirmation, as maybe there might be some toxic gases or such, that might be affecting wildlife, and just assuming things are one thing instead of having proof, is what they should be going on.

Anybody who has lived near an apple orchard knows all about drunken birds. Apples fall to the ground, ferment as they start to rot, and get eaten by the local bird population.Bears get drunk on rotting fruit, too. You do not want to encounter a drunken bear!